Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Review: Sunsational Sunflower Seed Milk

It was just this summer that I wondered to myself why no one had created
a sunflower seed milk. Lately I feel like the market of non-dairy milk
is overwhelmed with soy, almond, and coconut milks, none of which I can
have. Now I feel so lucky. I have had the opportunity to test out a new
product on the market - Sunsational sunflower seed milk! I wasn't chosen
to do this (I volunteered to post something on my blog) but I feel
especially lucky because this product isn't available on Canadian store
shelves yet, and has only recently launched in the US. I first read about this milk on Vegansaurus and From Seed To Stomach.

I have had this milk for a couple of weeks already, but have only just been able to try it now. Because of the nature of my allergies I always have to be careful when introducing something, so I wanted to make sure that I only tested it once my schedule was clear.

Sunsational comes in two flavours, original and vanilla. My husband and I tried both of them. It has a delicious nutty flavour reminiscent of a mixture of soy, almond, and hemp seed milks (which I have not had in years, but this is how I remember them). The vanilla is not over-powering, but it has a delicious, subtle hint of this flavour. I like this because it does not overwhelm the sunflower nuttiness, which I think is a huge success. It has quite a pronounced flavour, which I enjoy, but it may not work for every recipe that requires milk. This milk would do well in a chocolate flavour, and I hope the company thinks about this for the future.

As I've said before, my diet is super limited right now which means that my options for non-dairy milk are slim-to-none. I generally drink President's Choice Organics Rice Milk and find it quite delicious. One of my pet-peeves of rice milk is the high sugar content. Although PC's rice milk does not have any added sugar, the natural sugars in the rice still make it sweeter than I would prefer. I was pleased that Sunsational has a much lower sugar content than rice milk - almost half as much! Sunsational is creamier than rice milk, having one gram more of fat per serving (than the PC Organics kind)
which gives it a bit of a velvety texture, especially compared to rice
milk. This milk is grey in colour, which is a little surprising. I got over it quickly, it's not a big deal, but it is a little shocking at first glance. The plus side of this strange colour is that they are not altering the natural colour.

From our experimentation, this milk is delicious on its own, on cereal, in tea, or in smoothies. I'm going to try it out in my Sunbutter Chicken Fingers, I think it will add to the delicious nuttiness. I'm also going to try it in my Chocolate Chip Pancake recipe, and think it will be delicious!

If you live in the US, I understand that Sunsational is available at Whole Foods Markets. You can also order it directly from the Sunsational website here. I hope that if given the chance, you try out this new, delicious milk.